


Greñudo

by demonsushi01



Series: Klance Trope Month 2k20 [22]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, POV Keith (Voltron), Pet Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24332743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsushi01/pseuds/demonsushi01
Summary: Day 22. Pet Names5+1Five times Lance calls Keith "Greñudo" and one time he realizes what it means.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Klance Trope Month 2k20 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727086
Comments: 13
Kudos: 196





	Greñudo

**I.**

Keith is fourteen when he enters the Galaxy Garrison under the word of the Junior Officer, Shiro. He’s put in a placement exam with a few others, one of whom he recognizes but tries to ignore. They’re supposed to go through drills and formations but it bores him to death. He can tell the others are struggling and he rolls his eyes. 

He can’t exactly explain it, but flying a ship just feels so _natural_. He can almost hear a whisper in the back of his mind. It’s curious about him and what he’s doing, but also gently pushes and pulls his hands. He likes to pretend it’s the ghost of his mother because anything else would be _too_ weird. It doesn’t seem to mind.

Unfortunately, testing the abilities of the simulator doesn’t sit well with the commander. He squints at Keith while Shiro gives him a weak smile from behind him. Commander Iverson then assigns everyone extra drills because of his actions which are met with soft groans. 

“Thanks a lot, Keith.” James hisses next to him.

“You’re welcome.” He stares straight ahead, at attention. The others needed practice after all, so it’s easy to ignore the snark. But then James pushes on his old wounds about his parents and Keith can only see red. 

He remembers snapping and pinning the guy on the ground. He knows they threw punches and kicked at one another. He knows he bit James and that he was being pulled off the other boy fairly quickly. He remembers hissing, yelling, and trying to go back to the fight but the hands that had him were firm.

As they were being hauled out he remembers hearing one of the boys whisper.

“Jesus, greñudo.” 

**II.**

Keith is sixteen and he finds gym class still sucks no matter your grade, your age, or the school you go to. This is no different here at the Garrison. Their gym teacher wears them out to exhaustion in efforts to make sure they’re physically fit for space and the muscular atrophy that comes with zero gravity. 

But it’s also to ensure they can withstand the G-forces from other forms of their flight maneuvers as well. Keith’s noticed a strange difference between him and the others though and isn’t sure what to make of it. In the centrifuge, he watches the others struggle as it ticks up to six Gs, having problems lifting their arms and even starting to lose focus at seven or passing out close to eight. 

Keith barely registers the difference. He barely struggles through seven and is definitely still very much aware at eight. He doesn’t even feel it affecting his breathing but does as he’s told with quick and sharp ‘k’ sounds. He also finds out the machine maxes out at nine Gs and to the fear of his instructors he has no problem with it.

Now, the other cadets don’t know about this strange quirk of his. One the medics can’t exactly explain. This means when James and Lance whisper about doing a team competition Keith knows it can’t end well. They figure whatever team can rack up the most points wins and are quick to get the class onboard without the instructors knowing. 

“How are you going to track points?” Hunk, he thinks is the guy’s name, asks.

“By the G-forces you can withstand.” James crosses his arms. “Three Gs, three points for example.”

“Psh. Easy.” Lance says.

“Fine, I pick Kinkade.” 

“Well, I want Hunk.” Lance sets his hands on his hips.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hunk whines. 

“Leifsdotter.”

“Greñudo.” 

“Shaybon.”

Keith tunes them out and simply turns to the screens and watches everyone struggle and suffer. Hunk panics at two, Lance manages to get to seven, a girl he doesn’t know passes out at six, and James laughs. Keith rolls his eyes and steps in when it’s his turn.

He follows his instructions to a ‘T’, breathing when they tell him to, clenching his legs and butt to keep the blood flow where it needs to be, and overall is bored out of his mind. His body barely feels heavy, he’s got full color vision, no dizziness, or the feel of fainting at the edges. He’s slowed down, told to grab a killswitch, and they go again. He holds it until they slow it down themselves.

They ask him questions to test his cognitive abilities, make sure he’s okay, and then he gets to step out. Lance has the biggest grin on his face and James looks pale.

“How’d I do?” He asks innocently.

“Dude, you were at nine G’s for a solid fifteen seconds!” Lance claps his shoulder. “Looks like my team wins!”

**III.**

At eighteen Keith finds himself in space with his legal guardian, a scaredy-cat, a ‘rival’, a cagey-nerd, and two aliens. It feels like a set up for a bad joke. Maybe things would be easier if it was one. Saving the entire _known_ universe? How unlucky is he?

It makes him wonder what he did in a past life to get this thrown onto his lap. Because Allura only talks about the _known_ universe. Which, to him, implies there’s an _unknown_ universe. He’s just not sure if they’re parts of each other or separate planes of existence. And that’s too much for him to think about. 

Especially in the middle of training. He gets clipped in the shoulder by the pole the training bot is wielding. It knocks him off balance and he does his best to roll with it. When he pops up onto his feet he gets blasted forward by a shot to his back. He whips around and glares at Lance.

“What the fuck, Lance!?”

“You got in my shot, Greñudo!” He snaps back.

“Maybe you should look before you shoot!”

“No! _You_ should pay attention!”

“Fuck you!”

“Focus!” Shiro barks out over them. 

The two get knocked out anyway. They sit in the dark for a moment under the training floor and then they’re both lunging for each other. He can’t bite, scratch, or pull hair when they're in their armor, but he sure puts up a better fight than Lance does. Shiro eventually comes looking for them and breaks them apart. 

“I _will_ handcuff you two together the next time you fight. You _have_ to work together. Figure out what’s wrong between you two and fix it. _Now._ ” Shiro orders, giving them both a serious look and then walking away, done for the evening.

**IV.**

Keith… doesn’t know how old he is anymore. Not only are they having problems keeping track of time on the castleship, but he was also stuck in the Quantum Abyss and time just flows strangely there. So he honestly has no idea how old he’s supposed to be right now. Maybe in his twenties?

It doesn’t really matter, he supposes. He’s trying to reconnect with his team after his long disappearance. He has to until Shiro has recovered from the mess that is possessing his clone. Because as it stands, Keith has to pilot the Black Lion. Against his will. Again.

The person he’s having the hardest time reconnecting to is Lance. He doesn’t understand why though. They had finally been getting along before he left and now? There’s a gap, a misunderstanding, something that settles too awkwardly between them. And Keith isn’t sure how to bridge it.

He opens a private channel up to the Red Lion, glancing back and making sure his other passengers are asleep. Lance accepts it, to his surprise. They both stare at each other for a moment. 

“What’s up?” Lance asks eventually.

“What’s wrong between us?” 

“I don--”

“We’re… not the same as we were before I left. I thought we were becoming, I dunno, friends I guess? But now it’s just --” Keith waves a hand and hopes it conveys his lack of words. Lance is silent for a few moments before he sighs.

“We’re not even the same people, Keith. You were gone and you came back as a stranger I don’t know.”

“I’m the same person.” Keith shakes his head.

“Well, it doesn’t feel like it anymore. You’re bulkier, scruffier, silent as all hell, you don’t even glare at things anymore, just give them thousand-yard stares instead.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. Trust me. You just _zone_ out Keith. I don’t know what happened to you when you were in the abyss thing but...it did something to you.”

“...Honestly?”

“Hmm?”

“...I saw the future. Bits of it. Nothing makes sense really.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. So, I guess I keep looking and waiting for those parts to make sense.”

“Has any?” Lance asks. Keith glances over his shoulder at Shiro’s sleeping form. 

“I-- I saw Shiro and the cloning facility. He had a weird look to him and I was scared. I didn’t know what it meant until…” His hand comes up and skims the burn over his jaw.

“...He didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” Keith closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath. “I know he didn’t.”

“...Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Keith, seriously.”

“It’s fine.” He opens his eyes and looks at Lance.

“...It scared the shit out of me.” He says. “He just -- God he looked so _cold_. For a moment I thought ‘he’s gonna kill me’.” Lance flexes his jaw 

“...I did too.” Keith admits. 

“I _know_ he isn’t that. It was… It was Haggar who took control. But it was fucking terrifying. And I never want to go through that again.”

“Agreed.” Keith snorts. They fall into silence and Keith checks on his passengers again. He knows Lance is doing the same. 

“So you’re trying to put the future together?” Lance clears his throat.

“I guess? It’s not intentional.”

“Well, we need you here. _I_ need you here. Okay, Greñudo?” 

“Okay.” Keith nods and takes a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

“Please. I’m tired of my teammates trying to kill me.” Lance whines. “First Pidge, then Hunk, and now Shiro. I’m 0 for 3.”

“When did Pidge try to kill you?” Keith chuckles. 

“Don’t you remember the sphinx?”

“Oh yeah! The brain mushrooms.”

“Eugh, yeah.”

“I don’t think they were trying to kill you to be fair.”

“Oh they totally were!”

**V.**

Keith is twenty-four and is trying to watch some weird Altean movie onboard the new castleship. Allura and Coran both claim it to be a horror film but it’s more funny than anything. He can tell his fellow humans feel the same about it. Shiro keeps trying hard to be polite and not laugh, but Pidge has long since thrown that to the wind and cackles whenever something ‘scary’ happens. Hunk has gotten up to get snacks and Keith heard him cracking up in the halls.

Keith has his head in Lance’s lap. He mumbles quietly to Keith as he runs his fingers through his hair. They talk about nothing really. Their day, what a planet smelled like, the dinner Hunk made, when to go back to Earth, and the like. Keith finds his eyes becoming hazy as he feels himself starting to fall asleep to Lance braiding his hair. He jostles awake when he hears Lance’s soft laugh and he looks up at him. 

“You’re all greñudo,” Lance says, untangling the braids he’d made.

“You keep calling me that.” Keith murmurs. “Since we were like, kids. What’s it mean?”

“It means ‘I love you’.”

“I call bs.” He grunts. 

“Oh really?”

“I know ‘I love you’.”

“Do you now?”

“Te amo.” Keith still feels his accent is terrible but seeing Lance brighten up and smile widely at the words is worth it.

“Te amo, mucho, Greñudo.”

**+1**

Keith is twenty-seven and he thinks he’s never going to get enough of seeing Lance above him. Even now, lying next to him, catching their breaths is something that stays burned into his mind. It’s never old. 

They have to get up in an hour for some diplomatic thing. But neither can find it in them to let go of the other. Eventually, Shiro is tapping on their door, reminding the pair to get a move on. Lance groans and rolls out of the bed. Keith takes the moment to stare at Lance’s naked body. If he’s not careful, he’s going to want Lance back in bed with him. 

“Where’s my -- found it.” Lance pulls on his shirt and turns to Keith. He gets out of bed and starts getting dressed alongside his boyfriend. Lance clicks his tongue before Keith can step out the door though, running his fingers through his hair.

“Your hair is so _messy_. You’re always so _greñudo_.” 

“...Wait, what?” Keith blinks.

“Let me get you a brush.” Lance shakes his head and pats Keith’s chest.

“Wait, no, hold on. _Messy hair_ , really?” He asks.

“Well, what else was I gonna call you? _Mullet?_ ” Lance shrugs. 

“But it’s not --”

“I _know_ that.” 

“I can’t believe. This whole time.” Keith shakes his head with a laugh.

“I know. Took you thirteen years to figure it out.” Lance laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact for those who didn't know, in the Spanish dub for Voltron Lance calls Keith "Greñudo"  
> And it's something my wife absolutely loves about the dub (this is due to her dad calling her mom "Greñuda")
> 
> And remember, Day 31 is "Free Space" and I have a small survey to see what prompt you guys would like me to use for that day. It's a simple google form with five options and it should allow you to do it without needing an email. I will close the form on the 29th and announce the winner on the 30th You can find it here: https://forms.gle/GE36oDv1s8B7dohp8
> 
> With that said! Feel free to talk to me on demon-sushi on Tumblr or in the comments below <3


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